Olivier Py directed a production of Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées in 2023 and a live recording was made for CD. The Nightingale is sung by soprano Sabine Devieilhe and she is very good indeed. She has pretty much the perfect voice for this role with its coloratura sections and very high tessitura. Her voice sounds suitably sweet all the way up and her coloratura is very precise. She’s very well backed up by an all French cast featuring the excellent tenor Cyrille Dubois as the Fisherman and the unmistakable Laurent Naouri as the Chamberlain. Jean-Sébastien Bou also impresses as a suitably tremulous Emperor and there’s a nice cameo from Chantal Santon Jeffery as the Cook. The minor roles are all well sung and French diction is notably good across the board. Continue reading
Sabine Devieilhe impresses in Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol
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Philippe Boesmans’ last opera, On purge bébé, premiered at La Monnaie/De Munt in Dember 2022, a few months after the composer’s death. It’s a one act farce to a libretto by Richard Brunel after Feydeau. Predictably it’s extremely silly and rather French. It begins with an argument between a porcelain manufacturer (Follavoine) and his wife as they try to discover where Les Isles Hébrides are at the request of their unpleasant and constipated seven year old son. Looking under “Z” and “E” doesn’t help very much but it serves as a backdrop to their argument about administering a laxative to said son while awaiting the arrival of a fonctionnaire (Chouilloux) charged with sourcing 300,000 unbreakable chamber pots for the French Army. 
Ariane is a late opera (1906) by Jules Massenet. Now largely forgotten it has recently been recorded by the Palazzetto Bru Zane in their admirably produced series of French rarities. Unfortunately, unlike some of their other rediscoveries I wasn’t much taken with it.
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